Nelson County Supervisors to get presentation on Flock Safety cameras, consider $25M in bond funding for high school renovations

The Nelson County Sheriff’s Office has plans to install an automated license plate reader system as part of an initiative from the Virginia State Police. That’s one of several items on the agenda of the Nelson County Board of Supervisors meeting for February 18, 2025. This meeting was postponed from February 11 due to the winter storm and it does not appear any changes were made to the agenda.

The five Supervisors are scheduled to meet at 2 p.m. in the General District Courtroom at the Courthouse in Lovingston. These meetings are also streamed live and archived on YouTube. (meeting info)

The consent agenda includes approval of the various minutes from previous meetings as well as a budget amendment. The meeting is one from September 10, 2024. The budget amendments can be seen in the image below. Some of the items are appropriations of external revenue earned by the Sheriff’s Department for security details at University of Virginia events. That’s routine, as I reported in December.

Another appropriation is for a reimbursement of $1,559.88 from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration for 42 hours of overtime hours for a specific officer. There’s also appropriation of $95,321.32 from the Virginia Department of Forestry as I explained in a story in late January. 

There are two presentations. One is from the Virginia Department of Transportation but there’s no information available in advance for that item. 

The other is a grant application from the Virginia State Police for the H.E.A.T. program. That stands for Help Eliminate Auto Theft. The Sheriff’s Office has been awarded $12,500 from the Virginia State Police. 

“Your application indicated that you intended to use this funding to purchase Flock Safety automated license plate reader equipment to assist in the detection and recovery of stolen motor vehicles,” reads a January 29, 2025 letter from the VSP to Sheriff Mark Embry. 

The meeting packet has a presentation from Flock Safety. There appears to be a proposal to place three or four license plate readers in Nelson. There are ten cameras deployed in Charlottesville, as Police Chief Michael Kochis explained last week. The cost in the first year would be $12,495. The presentation has testimonials from Fairfax County, the City of Franklin, and Virginia Beach. 

There are three items under new and unfinished business. 

The first is a resolution to authorize a public hearing for the application of $25 million in bond sales to the Virginia Public School Authority for “design, improvement, renovation, construction and equipping of public school facilities, including electrical, mechanical, plumbing, fire safety, roadway and parking lot, security and other upgrades and renovations at Nelson County High School.” (learn more)

According to materials for this item, a public hearing notice will be sent to the newspaper of record on February 13 and first published on February 20 and then again on February 27. A public hearing for these will be held on March 11. At that time, Supervisors are also expected to approve a contractor.  (learn more)

Wintergreen Fire Safety 

The second is a resolution to appoint Joshua A. Bean as fire marshall for the area under the Wintergreen Master plan. Currently there is not such an official which has recently received a poor grade from the Insurance Safety Office. (learn more)

“We were previously an ISO-Class 2 department,” reads a memo in the packet. “Our new score is Class 5, which will mean drastic increases in property insurance if we can’t improve during our 12-month improvement period.” 

The memo states that the score can go up if there can be someone to investigate fires and notify property owners of potential risks. 

“Many structures at Wintergreen are now 50 years old and most are over 30 years old,” the memo continues. “Some materials used during construction (i.e. fireplaces) may have outlived their useful life and now be presenting a hazard. Without investigating fires, we will not be able to pick up on trending data which could be used to avoid fires, save property, and potentially save lives.”

Bean is a fire investigator with Wintergreen Fire & Rescue. 

Help with parks fundraising

The third presentation is on the proposed creation of a Nelson County Recreation Foundation. The goal would be to fundraise for parks and recreation projects, similar to the recently formed Albemarle County Parks Foundation. (learn more)

There are several reports, appointments, directives, and correspondence. For most meetings, Supervisors would adjourn until the evening session, but time around there is only the afternoon session. After Part VI of the meeting, Part VII will be a review of the capital improvement plan and requests from various agencies. 

Supervisors will next meet on February 26 for a joint work session with the Planning Commission.  

Before you go: This is an important post because I think it is the first time a segment from the Week Ahead newsletter will go out via this website rather than the Substack newsletter. This one will be in the 300th edition of a regular look at what’s coming up in local and regional government. This particular post is an experiment in posting here first and to move the newsletter to a secondary status. The hope is to get more people aware of meetings before they happen. In any case, your feedback is welcome.